**COULDNT LOVE**
“Girls, which one of you is Lillian?” The stranger eyed us with a sly, searching look, her hospital smock flapping in the breeze.
“Im Lillian. Why?” I frowned, puzzled.
“Here. A letter for you. From Oliver,” she said, pulling a crumpled envelope from her pocket and pressing it into my hand.
“Oliver? Where is he?”
“Transferred to the adult care home. Waited for you like manna from heaven, he did. Nearly wore his eyes out watching for you. Gave me this to check for spelling mistakesdidnt want to embarrass himself. Anyway, Ive got to go. Lunchtime.” With a disapproving sigh, she scurried off.
…It had started one summer afternoon, long ago. My friend Sophie and I, both sixteen and restless, had wandered onto the grounds of an unfamiliar institution. We perched on a bench, giggling over nothing, when two boys approached.
“Alright, girls? Bored? Fancy a chat?” The taller oneOliverextended a hand.
“Lillian,” I said. “And this is Sophie. Whos your quiet friend?”
“Leonard,” mumbled the other.
They seemed oddly old-fashioned, stiff. Oliver frowned at our outfits. “Why dyou wear skirts so short? And Sophie, that necklines a bit much, isnt it?”
We laughed. “Boys, eyes frontor they might just pop out of your heads!”
“Hard not to look. Were only human. You dont smoke, do you?” Oliver pressed, all earnest concern.
“Course we do. Just not properly,” Sophie teased.
It was only then we noticed their legsOliver shuffled awkwardly, Leonard limped badly.
“You here for treatment?” I asked.
“Yeah. Motorbike crash,” Oliver recited, like a well-worn script. “Len took a bad dive off a cliff. Getting discharged soon.”
We believed them. Back then, we didnt realise they were lifelong residents of that place, spinning tales of accidents to mask the truth. To them, we were a fleeting taste of the outside world.
Week after week, we returned. Partly out of pity, partly because they were sharper than any boys we knewwell-read, oddly wise. Oliver plucked flowers from the garden for me; Leonard folded origami creatures for Sophie, bashful as he handed them over. Wed sit crammed on the bench, Oliver too close to me, Leonard turned toward Sophie, who flushed but never pulled away.
Summer faded. Autumn came, then exams, graduation. We forgot them entirelyuntil, on a whim, we returned. Sat on the same bench. Waited. No one came.
Then the woman in the smock appeared, letter in hand.
Inside, Olivers words sprawled in shaky ink:
*Dearest Lillian, my sweet blossom, my distant starI loved you from the first. Those afternoons were air to me. Six months Ive stared at this window, waiting. You forgot. Our paths wont cross again, but I thank you for showing me love. Your voice, your laugh, your handsIm hollow without them. One more glimpse, just onebut theres nothing left to breathe.*
*Len and I turned eighteen. Theyll move us soon. My hearts in tatters. Maybe one day this fever for you will break.*
*Goodbye, my darling.*
*Yours always, Oliver*
A dried flower fell from the envelope. My chest ached with shame. A line flashed through my mind*were responsible for those weve tamed.*
Id never suspected such depths in him. Could I have loved him back? No. Only friendship, curiositya bit of teasing, stoking a fire I didnt know burned so fiercely.
…Years later, the letters yellowed, the flower dust. But I remember the laughter, the sunlit afternoons.
Theres more. Sophie, moved by Leonards storyabandoned at birth for his “difference,” one leg shorter than the otherbecame a teacher at a home like his. Married him. Two grown sons now.
Oliver? Leonard, when we met again, said he lived alone. At forty, his mother reappeared, wept over the son shed left, took him to her village. After thatsilence.
